


the love that follows us sometime is our trouble (which still we thank as love)

by Yeah_Im_A_Streetlight



Category: In the Heights - Miranda/Hudes
Genre: "it's complicated" says everyone in this story, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Love, New York City, Nina and Vanessa are best friends, Nina is leaving for college, Summer in NYC, and also kind of in love, girlfriends and hookups and branches and friends and sisters, i guess, lack of labels in their lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 09:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18891790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_Im_A_Streetlight/pseuds/Yeah_Im_A_Streetlight
Summary: “...Who could refrain,That had a heart to love, and in that heartCourage to make love known?”― William Shakespeare, MacbethOr, Nina and Vanessa are friends, they are forever, and they are also in love. Nina isn't really sure how to say that, though (and it's okay, because Vanessa isn't really sure, either).





	the love that follows us sometime is our trouble (which still we thank as love)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi so please pretend Benny and Usnavi aren't love interests in this story, because I really do like Nina with benny. So in this universe, that's just not a thing, and Nina and Vanessa are!
> 
>  
> 
> Title and summary quote are from Macbeth, by Shakespeare, because it's Nina's favorite.  
> \- and I know the quotes are actually kind of about murder? but Nina's a little dark what can I say?

Somehow, it always seemed to be July again.

It was hot. The air had that quality, that faint smell of sweat and water and summer, in general. In the shade of the parks, it was dark and hot, trees rustling with water from the latest downpour. 

Nina loved July. She loved June, too, and May- any month where she could lie for hours out on the roof, with a book or one of those little fan spray bottles. 

But this July was different. Still, almost. She knew that in a few weeks, she would be packed and flying across the country, starting a school she wasn’t sure she was ready for- leaving this all behind.

New York City in summer was not the hell people made it out to be. Yes, it was hot- so fucking hot, all the time. And yes, it was true that the subways were crowded and smelly. And that the halal trucks’ scent wafted into the air, providing a smell that was not nearly as nice as the Nuts 4 Nuts carts’ around Christmas. All the rumors about the city in June, July- they weren’t wrong, exactly.

But there were things to love about it, too. The sun stayed out late, and if you made it to the roof, you could watch the bridge glitter with the million cracks and sparks that the sun left behind. You could take the train downtown, over an hour, and Coney Island was waiting. She never swam there- she could practically hear her mother in her head that second (“The water is filthy, mija, and you know those druggie types like to hang around down by the beach!”)- but the pier was soft and slow when you turned away, and there was something there.

She wasn’t sure what things about Stanford she was going to fall in love with. Would there be things like that? Popsicle carts selling dripping cartoon characters into the night, music blasting from radios, shorts riding up in the heat, fanning each other with magazines.

That was another thing. Vanessa. Fucking Vanessa. 

It wasn’t just the city that she wasn’t sure how to leave. Because with New York, it was hard as hell, but in the end, she would ride up the escalator at JFK and turn out her window as they took off, waving goodbye to Manhattan and the Bronx and Queens, and all the other spots she could see. 

But with Vanessa? It was almost a nightmare. 

They were so complicated, the two of them, they were nuances in time and different identities to everyone. To the Rosarios, they were sisters. To Daniela and Carla, Usnavi and Benny, everyone else, they were friends. To Abuela, they were her branches, blooming years after they’d grown from her roots. 

And maybe they hid the best parts of themselves from the rest of the world. It wasn’t out of shame, or guilt, or doubt. It was just the fact that they didn’t need it broadcasted. They were perfectly happy alone on the fire escape, friends and sisters and lovers and souls intertwining, sipping grape sodas and stealing kisses and sweating their asses off. 

Nina didn’t have a life that Vanessa wasn’t in. And now?

There was the time that Nina begged Vanessa to go with her to Shakespeare in the Park. They were sixteen. The play was Macbeth. Nina had jumped out of excitement all the way to Central Park. Vanessa had poked her about a hundred times, asking her everything from “Who the fuck is that guy?” to “Nina? What the hell is going on?” Vanessa had told her at the end that the play “made no sense, but at least Lady Macbeth was hot.” Nina agreed. 

It was perfect.

Summers with Vanessa had existed- for always. Ever since they were babies. Riverside Drive, park visits, lounge chairs on a hot roof, trips downtown to thrift stores in Greenwich Village, a few playground rides to the Hudson River. Lots of ice cream. Some tears.

There was a tapping on the window behind her. She spun around, and of course it was Vanessa, because of course it was. How else were things like this supposed to work?

She strained while pushing the window open- it had been sticky for years- sliding it up just enough for Vanessa to army crawl through.

“Damn, Nina, thanks. You couldn’t have opened it a little more? My boobs are, like, rolling out of this top.”

“Sorry! I didn’t have that problem!”

“Because yours isn’t strapless.”

Nina raised her eyebrows, as if daring Vanessa to comment on that fact.

“You know I don’t mind, right?”

“Yeah. I know,” Nina was smirking, just a little, and leaned over to kiss Vanessa. Slowly. Deeply. Shit.

They broke apart after a while. The sun was out, looming over the tiny buildings up here, crossed through the train tracks. They were silent. Vanessa was silent, staring out at something (what was it, what was that thing she was always reaching for?)

She didn’t know how to say it. Maybe she just had to-

“Vanessa, what happens now?” (Yeah, it was abrupt, but what the hell?)

“Now? We raid the De La Vega’s, buy a pint of Haagen Daas, and beg Usnavi to throw in grape sodas for free. Then we make out on this fire escape.”

“Okay,” Nina draws the word out, “I bet you know how much I want to do that?”

“Yep,” Vanessa answers, busying herself by picking a fallen leaf off the metal bars and crinkling the sides up, letting it fall down to the street. (She watches it fall, picks another leaf, rolls that one between two fingers)

“But, like- I mean, more- like- long term?” 

Nina was terrible at this.

Maybe she wanted to die. Maybe she wanted to be Vanessa’s friend. Maybe she wanted to be Vanessa’s something else, she wasn’t sure what. Maybe she didn’t know.

“Shit, you mean like tonight? Tell me you don’t want me to come with you to another Shakespeare show, please, I’m begging you!”

“No! It’s after July 20th, anyway, which means it’s only Romeo and Juliet now. I fucking hate Romeo and Juliet. It’s weak. He has better tragedies.”

“I thought you liked it?”

“Well, I liked Juliet’s death scene,” Nina concedes, thoughtfully.

“Okay, little miss sunshine,” Vanessa jokes, but Nina can tell that she’s putting it on. Vanessa knows exactly what she’s talking about. 

“This isn’t about Romeo and Juliet, Nina. I know that.” (It’s almost a whisper, almost a gasp of silence…)

“Okay, fine. What I mean is- I love you, I love being your friend and I love making out with you behind trees and I love when my parents stop asking how long you’re staying over and I love when Abuela Claudia doesn’t even stop to think about whether or not she’s made enough cookies for you, too, because she always has. Like, I don’t know, every part of us- it’s amazing.”

“Good,” Vanessa smiled at her, small and genuine, and it was moments like these that made Nina’s heart stop. “I love all that too.”

“But- you know I’m going away, and then what are we? I can’t wake up to you already out on my fire escape anymore, because I won’t have one, and you won’t be there to be on the one I don’t have, and-,”

“Whoa, okay, Nina. Rambling…”

“I know! I’m sorry. But like- what are we?”

“What do you mean?”

“How many best friends do you know that spend half their time kissing?”

She doesn’t mention the other part. The not just friends, not just hook ups part. The part where she’d look into Vanessa’s eyes in the middle of the night and see all the stars there. The moments their hands brushed, and Nina felt shivers race up and down her spine. The part where she knew Vanessa was the most perfect girl in the world, knew that all those songs had to be written about her- but what was that? Things weren’t supposed to be that way.

“I thought we didn’t want to put labels on it.”

Vanessa’s exterior is colder now, a shell she puts up when someone’s too close. But Nina sees beneath it- she’s hurt. She’s vulnerable. She’s angry, maybe, it’s hard to tell sometimes.

“I don’t! Or maybe I do? I don’t know, Vanessa, would you just stop freaking out?”

“I’m not the one freaking out! You’re the one who suddenly wants to know ‘what this is’, as if it hasn’t been a thing since we were fucking fifteen!”

“Well, why don’t we just talk about it, then?”

“Because! I don’t know, Nina, because. Because I’m not ready, I’m not ready for that!”

“Maybe you should just go.”

“Yeah. Maybe I will.”

And all she hears is the squeaky rubber of the window, and all she smells is Vanessa’s cheap perfume wafting back out of her bedroom, and all she tastes is salt, feels the tears rolling down her cheeks. There is no reason to cry, she knows this, because it’s Vanessa. They’ve been fighting since the first grade. They’ve been hugging it out since the first grade, too.

But maybe it’s not the same now.

She couldn’t say when it started. Just little things. Like, they’d been friends forever. They’d been hooking up for the better part of two years. But some things were so hard to define. Going away with a sister/friend/hook up/branch wasn’t something whole, it wasn’t something real.

Maybe there’d been nights where she wondered. Wondered what it’d be like to go on a date with her, what it would be like to whisper “I love you” into the dark, wondered what it would be like to be more than this. Whatever the fuck ‘this’ was.

But what was that? How was it different, how was it different to be friends who kissed than girlfriends? They had the same stuff. The same moments, she was pretty sure. Maybe it was the way they said “I love you”. Maybe it meant something different, now. 

Why was everything so complicated?

Because what if Vanessa didn’t want to be her something more than this, whatever this was? Whatever that meant. 

She was confusing herself, and she hated it. Nina Rosario did not like to get confused.

And who was she supposed to ask?

(Of course, she didn’t know Vanessa’s thoughts. She didn’t know that she thought Nina’s eyes looked like moons, and her miles of frizzy, soft hair felt like home. She didn’t know that Vanessa was afraid to let something come true. Something bloom- maybe not love, maybe not just yet. But she hoped, someday. Someday.) 

An old song was floating up towards her. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn it was Vanessa’s mom playing it, still lost between her worlds, scratched records meaning nothing when the planet wasn’t there anymore. When the sky was a better home.  
// Don't leave...  
If you let me...  
If you stay away from me...  
You will follow in my memories forever... //

Forever. For always. Para siempre. What an idea. Sometimes she could say that she wanted things forever, the next minute, she was fine with none of it lasting.

Maybe Vanessa’s mother had the right idea. Maybe the sky was a better home.

She spent a few hours there, laid out across her fire escape, listening to the faint radios and waiting for a breeze to pass through again. 

//Don’t leave...  
Stay away… from… me…  
Forever-forever-forever-for-for-for-for---//

Someone had to fix that goddamn CD.

Spanish was blended with English, to her. Parts of her heart. Parts of her mind. Parts of Nina. 

//Para siempre, para siempre, para siempre…//

There was a butterfly on the railing, now. 

The hours were fading, with the greys of the sky.

The butterfly flew away, over the clouds.  
\---  
When she thought back on it, it was clear. Now, she understood why it had happened the way it did.

There were a dozen different realities. There were ones where Vanessa hated her guts. There were ones where Vanessa never spoke to her again. There were ones where they stayed the way they were. There were ones where they were nothing, everything, and all the stuff in between.

Thank the fucking heavens that only one of them came true. 

She knew exactly where Vanessa would be (she knew that Nina would know exactly where to find her).

She walked up to her boldly. “I know this isn’t what it’s supposed to be, but I love you and I can’t lose you when I leave.” (She didn’t know if this meant love or love, but what was that, even?)

Maybe, they chorused together in silence, minds connected in the distance, maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe they could have the love they shared as babies, the love they had growing up, the love they had of touching each other (hot and dark and lovely). Maybe having a history doesn’t mean you can’t have a different future. Maybe friends to lovers AND friends wasn’t so wrong.

Maybe I can love you the way I always have,

Maybe I can love you the way I’ve always wanted to.

Maybe we can do both.

They kissed on Nina’s roof again that night, but it wasn’t the same heated kind of kiss it usually was. No, this was more of a “I don’t know what this is, but I love you. I’m here.”

They didn’t say ‘girlfriends’. They didn’t say ‘just friends’, either. They were Nina and Vanessa. They could find a way. Love, maybe, was a lot of things.

Nina did leave for Stanford. Vanessa did kiss her, though, and promised to visit. 

“And I’m going to take you on a hell of a date, babe, you don’t even know what’s coming.”

(Maybe secretly, in their heads, they each thought of the other as their girlfriend. Maybe they both knew that their more than friends love was also a dating kind of love. Maybe they accepted it, maybe they said those things at some point. Maybe labels were a tiny bit overrated.)

(Labels were overrated, sure, but Nina and Vanessa still beamed the first time one of them casually says the world ‘girlfriend’.)

(Maybe it seems right, for now.)

And who knows, Nina wonders. Maybe it’ll be forever, maybe not, but Vanessa is forever. That’s true. (and maybe she’d be lying if she said she didn’t hope that maybe, just maybe, this ‘girlfriends’ thing could be forever, too.)

 

You will follow in my memories forever...  
Para siempre,  
Para siemp- para siemp- para siempre…

(the bridge still cracks into a million pieces of glitter when Nina runs into Vanessa’s arms her first day back, and they kiss, and they hold each other, and they just know. Because sometimes, you can just… know.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I know this fandom is smaller and I've never published for it before, but ITH is my second favorite musical and I couldn't resist this.
> 
> So also, all the stuff about nyc summers is based off my obsessive love for my city, and hate for people who say its summers are hell. anyone else here who lives in nyc? please back me up here!
> 
> details you might care about:
> 
> \- yes, Macbeth was the Shakespeare in the park show in 2006, and Romeo and Juliet was the one in 2007. if the events of the musical are in 2008, I'm putting this stuff at like a year before.
> 
> \- I also love macbeth and hate Romeo and Juliet
> 
> \- Nina in this story is actually basically me
> 
> \- the nuts 4 nuts guys are superior to the halal guys I'm sorry!!
> 
> \- the Hudson River park is heaven in summer 
> 
> \- Coney Island's beach is nasty and their subway often has needles and teeth in it so yeah. I love the pier though
> 
>  
> 
> \---  
> I'm sorry I talk too much I hope you liked it comment maybe if you want to talk to me because I'd love that!


End file.
